Making Contributions and Taking Action
Interaction Design Theory Seminar 20 || Session 1
The Seminar started with an exercise of reflection of our past two years studying Interaction Design at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Our lecturere posed us two questions and gave us 5 minutes time to think;
What has had an inpact on you?
For me this was something I have fairly recently thought about, to some extent. Having taken part in a program over the summer and being introduced to the start-up scene, I’ve realized that I’ve been extremely spoiled at ZHdK. Working together with like-minded people in this way is still rather uncommon in “the real world” and many people aspire to have such a dynamic and creative people around them. This chaotic but energetic athmosphere is something I’ve come to appreciate even more and that I really enjoy working together with people.
What impact have you made?
The initial minute of the exercise my brain went… to ?? to then finally !(?). It felt daunting to be confronted with this rather provocative question, nevertheless, it is an important one to ask oneself even. The self-critical side of my brain obviously finds that I haven’t really done anything that has affected or changed the world or my surroundings in a major way, but thinking in large scales isn’t really helpful so therefore I scale down. I feel like I’ve had an impact in how I work with people in a team. I tend to take a more supportive role, mediating within the team to find common ground. With the risk of sounding cheesy, in my opinion it is important to take the time to listen to the voice of all team members, then it will in most cases bring valuable insights. Doing this not only for the sake of the creative process but also the interpersonal and the general athmosphere/dynamics. Then again, when interacting with people, you’ll never really know the impact you’ve had uneless they explicitly tell you. Therefore, I’d like to think that being empathetic in group work had an impact.
Moreover, during my internship in summer in a small start-up I also had an direct impact on decisions that were made and was the “tech-girl” that codes (though not very well, but you know :) ), which was very neat.
